English

Challenges with Differentiable Quantum Dynamics

Quantum Physics 2026-03-27 v2 Optimization and Control

Abstract

Differentiable quantum dynamics require automatic differentiation of a complex-valued initial value problem, which numerically integrates a system of ordinary differential equations from a specified initial condition, as well as the eigendecomposition of a matrix. We explored several automatic differentiation frameworks for these tasks, finding that no framework natively supports our application requirements. We therefore demonstrate a need for broader support of complex-valued, differentiable numerical integration in scientific computing libraries.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2406.06361,
  title  = {Challenges with Differentiable Quantum Dynamics},
  author = {Sri Hari Krishna Narayanan and Michael Perlin and Robert Lewis-Swan and Jeffrey Larson and Matt Menickelly and Jan Hückelheim and Paul Hovland},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2406.06361},
  year   = {2026}
}